Boys > Girls

Confession: I’ve developed a bad habit since I started this blog. My eyes and ears are always opened to any and all issues that I think might be relevant to bring up in this forum. So basically, and I think I’ve mentioned this here in the past, no conversation or passing comment related to women and men goes unnoticed when I’m around. It may very well end up on this blog. Names and places will always be left off but you might recognize yourself – you’ve been warned.

I was at a dinner the other day and for a time much of the attention was focused around this young child, who was sweetly interacting with one of the other dinner guests. Some of the other guests were commenting to each other about how cute this young boy was, and he really was, and cooing about the way he was dressed and the way he was interacting with the other guest. Then a comment from one of the side conversations caught my attention. “I really want to have all boys, girls are just too much drama”, I overheard one of my friends say. The others around her nodded and spoke up in agreement, interjecting their own brief statements of why boys were preferable to girls. Boys were easy to dress, girls wouldn’t let their moms dress them, boys are more easy going, girls are high maintenance – basically boys > girls.

As I sat there listening to some people I consider to be pretty amazing women, who would raise terrific women themselves, I couldn’t help but wonder, where were they getting these idea from? And why was everyone so readily agreeing? Did no one think this mass generalization of boys and girls was a bit of an oversimplification of reality? Not every social situation lends itself to serious conversation about the forces that are acting upon us and causing us to accept certain beliefs as fact so I figured this was perhaps not the time in which to bring up the questions above.

This conversation actually reminded me of an article that I think has been going around from Yashar Ali, published on the Huffington Post a few days ago. In it, Ali explains how women have been constantly portrayed as emotional, hyper-sensitive and generally crazy that it impacts not only how men view and treat women but also how women view themselves. His depiction of men interacting with women under this assumption was interesting but more interesting to me was how he was describing women who bought into this idea. He describes an encounter he had with a flight attendant in which he explained that he mainly wrote about women, which caused the flight attendant to respond, “oh, about how crazy we are?”

Much like Ali, her reaction makes me rather depressed. There is very little chance of achieving gender equality, so crucial for the advancement of civilization as a whole, if women themselves hold misconceptions about women. When I was studying ISGP’s document on the equality of women and men in Uganda, one of the women we studied the document with said that before we want to talk about how we can stop men from oppressing women, we have to deal with women oppressing women. She was right. The task of overlooking stereotypes and recognizing someone’s true identity doesn’t lie just with men interacting with women but also with women interaction with women (and men interacting with men for that matter). Essentially, you teach people how to treat you and if women can’t even support other women, why would men support women? Somehow when women can make callous and careless statements about other women it makes you realize we still have a long way to go.

I’ve asked people to contribute to this blog and write about how they try and engender equality in their own lives and a lot have said that they don’t really think they are actively contributing so they don’t have much to write about. Honestly though, if one person in that room would’ve said something, not in a confrontation way, but in a way to invite reflection, that would’ve been engendering equality. We should all take time to reflect and thus become more aware of what is influencing our understanding of gender and relationships between men and women. I think any contribution to equality between women and men requires honest reflection and the realization that our actions and our beliefs are not always perfectly synced, as well as the commitment to achieve that coherence between the two.

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7 thoughts on “Boys > Girls”

The same thing happened at work yesterday. One of my coworkers mentioned how it was all girls working that night and then remarked that normally she doesn’t like girls, but last night was special – we were different girls. It made me uncomfortable. She went on to say that normally she doesn’t “like girls.” All the other girls nodded along in agreement, “oh yeah, I only hang out with boys. Boys are so much better.” It was so blatant! And so acceptable! Come on, ladies! When are we going to realize that there is such power that exists in women and all you are doing by bashing women is fulfilling that complaint that “women are catty and dramatic,” which is something that you complain about so much.

I think it’s just important to mention in times like these the power that exists in women – obviously not in a harsh way, but I think people forget. Anyways. I have to stop talkign about it because it’s making me sad.

I’m in complete agreement with both the post and Shirin’s comment above. But I do think there is a dynamic at play that merits consideration: that is, what are the social forces that impel women and girls to behave in a way that are easily characterized as “dramatic” or “catty”? Why do some women do that? I had also read and was impressed by Yashar Ali’s piece about the portrayal of women as “crazy” and how that plays out in relationships and society. Those dynamics are very familiar to me. And for me, as always, the key to this is how we educate girls and boys in their childhood to regard themselves, their worth, their purpose in life. Many girls are still raised to consider themselves as adjuncts to boys and men and they perceive their worth to be tied in to how well they can monopolize the scarce commodity of male admiration. This makes them competitive. Further, women who are direct and forceful in their dealings with others tend to be labeled in unpleasant ways–“angry”, “strident”, “nagging”, “bossy” and worse. So many women compensate by being manipulative and passive-aggressive. Little girls at times use exclusion from group membership as the ultimate weapon against rivals and those they want to bully. Anyone who has a daughter who has been on the receiving end of such behavior knows what a nightmare that is. I believe that when women say “It’s easier to have boys than girls” they are not consciously making a statement of male superiority (although of course that is the inevitable implication). I believe they are reflecting their own sense of powerlessness to raise girl children to be different, and perhaps indirectly sharing their own pain at what they themselves have experienced. There are, of course, a whole host of social evils that affect boys and make raising them an unbelievable challenge. And, yes, I do think that whatever others’ motivations may be in making such statements, we should respond, if the time is right. It can be yet another opportunity to raise the level of our casual social conversations by asking those who are speaking what their experiences have been and how they think we can set about changing these social patterns.

This is a very interesting post. As a mother of three sons – now grown-up – I have always had the opposite experience. Countless times throughout my life I was ‘pitied’ by other women as though I was in some way deprived due to the gender of my children. I have always found most women – and some men – to have a vast preference for daughters.

So I had to do some thinking when I read this post and the comments. All I can conclude is that this really represents two issues, not just one.

Issue No. 1
The root of the problem of women expressing a preference for boy children is not based on the actual gender of the child but rather on the advantage to the parent of that gender. In my case, the pity was all based on how I would be deprived of all sorts of ‘girlie’ things due to my lack of little girlies. In the dinner conversation you recount it is all about how easy or difficult boys or girls are seen to be for their parents to manage etc.

Issue No. 2
The problem of women being characterized as crazy, emotion-driven and generally hysterical (as I’m sure you know this is a word based on the Greek word, ‘hysteros’, meaning womb) – is definitely one of stereotypes.

It would be great if life was simple enough to understand by using stereotypes but it is a dangerous procedure no matter who is doing it and no matter who is the subject.

Even positive stereotypes of women (and men) are unhelpful though we complain less about them. Stereotypes are a lazy, prejudiced and inaccurate basis for our interactions and will inevitably cause problems.

Women are people first and foremost. The same is true of men. As ‘Abdu’l-Baha says,

“In reality, God has created all mankind, and in the estimation of God there is no distinction as to male and female. The one whose heart is pure is acceptable in His sight, be that one man or woman. God does not inquire, “Art thou woman or art thou man?” He judges human actions.”

Finally, I agree wholeheartedly with your final comments about the need to engage in a non-confrontational way when these issues come up. It is the only way we can progress together.

I want to comment on the idea expressed here how women are oppressing other women and how other women impact the way we view ourselves.

I am not married and many times I have heard one comment from different people on why I am still single. People (mostly women) say that I have strong views and have to be softer, i.e. if I have an opinion or an idea I shouldn’t pursue it myself but rather introduce it in a way that a man thinks it was his idea. This is believed to be a way of smarter women who do what they want but outwardly staying at the secondary position.

It is also mostly women who comment on other women looks when they are not in line with the image created by media.

Welcome

At the core of this blog is the document “Advancing towards the Equality between Women and Men” prepared by the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity. However, engendering equality is not just a catchy name, it’s also a process we are all engaged in. In order to give us inspiration to be working towards engendering equality this blog tries to create a space in which actions and reflections are shared by individuals on the promotion of the equality of women and men within their social space.